The Downside of Infinite Vocabularies
by gveret
Summary: Cassandra Cain, age seven, dreams about hugs and tries to tell her father she loves him with no words.


**Note:** Using words to illustrate a wordless point of view is _weird_. The nonexistence of names is a bit of an inconvenience, for one thing. I hope I've managed to make this at least somewhat intelligible.

* * *

She doesn't know many faces. Most of her friends wear masks all the time. It's not a problem; she understands them well enough without seeing their expressions. She just wishes that she could.

For a very long time the only face she knew was _his_. She loved his face. It wasn't easy to understand, it wasn't always pleasant, but when it said _'Good job,'_ or _'You surprised me,' _or _'I'm pleased_,_'_ it was the most beautiful thing in the world.

Not that seeing his teeth was necessarily a good thing; but it always meant he was willing to be read.

She remembers the day he first brought her a mirror – her first glimpse of another face. Even though she could sort of see her distorted reflection in the bathroom tiles and in her glasses of water, she'd never _really_ seen herself before that. The first time she looked in the mirror, what she saw reflected back at her was clear, well-enunciated _disappointment._

She didn't look much like _him_ at all. She's not sure why she expected herself to; maybe because so often when he sparred with her his leans and his steps and the rolls of his shoulders said things like _'You and I are so much alike,'_ and _'I know you because I know myself.'_ But the mirror told her: _'You're a lot less interesting than he is.'_ She didn't know her face was so vocal and open until then.

She started practicing quieting down her features after that, and it didn't take long for her to get as good at shutting up as she was at listening, and from then on it became lot easier not to tell _him_ when she hurt, which was a very useful skill.

Studying faces, she discovered, is simultaneously a much more detailed and much more deceptive endeavor than the reading of bodies. Faces say more, and they lie more, too. People seem to be much more aware of their own expressions than anything else of theirs, and often shoulders and feet would tell you what eyebrows and mouths tried to hide. But then, when faces are honest, or (_especially_) when they aren't, they say things so strong and specific and serious, things that knees could never say, no matter how firm or how jittery.

She wonders if most people wear masks as a matter of course. It makes sense, to cover up such an intimate part of yourself in front of others, when even insignificant things like chests and thighs are always kept covered. It's probably why only _he_ leaves his face so naked; he would never let anyone see in him something that he isn't perfectly proud of. And he's trying to teach it to her too, this confidence. That's probably why she doesn't get a mask either.

The third face she knows, she's only seen once. It belonged to a man with a stutter in the hands and a very demanding posture. His face suited his posture more than his hands, and it made her think he probably practiced in front of a mirror a lot, too. The one time she met him he was wearing uncomfortable clothes and standing with folded arms as she played for a few rounds with two people she knew and three others she didn't recognize and who wore unfamiliar masks.

He was saying _'You're so smug and I don't like you and she is not as impressive as I thought, but I need her.' _Then, after _he_ took him aside where she couldn't see and probably raised an eyebrow or maybe put more weight on his left leg than his right, the man in the stiff clothes pulled out a gun and shot her in the foot before she could shift away, and she disarmed and tripped him before he could tell her he thought he could get her for less.

She didn't like that man, but he was her third face, and she never saw him again anyway. Nobody came after that without a mask again, and when she tried to ask _him_ about it he pretended not to understand. He didn't tell her she wasn't good enough, but she thinks he thought so. He always had trouble silencing the tension in his neck.

When he sewed her skin together and wrapped her foot up, she remembers the lines between his nose and the corners of his mouth saying she should have been something better by now. She couldn't tell specifically what, but she could take a guess.

.

He cares about her. She knows he does. He says it with his eyebrows and sometimes with his eyes.

But when she tries to tell him, with her own eyes or with her smile, and especially when she tries to say it with her arms, he always says _no_. He says _'You don't know what you're talking about.' _He says '_This isn't what I want.' _He says _'You're not allowed.'_

So she tries to say it with grips and blocks and lunges and flips; she tries to say it with elbows and footpads and knuckles and knees. She tries telling him with the things she is allowed, and it does make him happy, but he doesn't ever get it.

She learned hugs from her friends in the masks. Not all of them do it and they don't do it often, and then only when _he_ isn't around. Sometimes they look guilty or apologize afterwards, but sometimes they laugh (and it's so _loud_ and intense and says so many wonderful things, she thinks it's probably the best part.)

It's really simple. She probably should have figured it out before experiencing it; something so obvious should be easier to anticipate. Two arms around the neck or the back and a squeeze, and that's it. A chin over the shoulder is optional, and so is a cheek against the collarbone. Almost insultingly basic; but before her first hug, she didn't have a clue.

_It's like a_ _masterpiece_, was the third thing she thought after being hugged for the first time (the first thing being, of course, _wow_, and then, a few moments later, _me too._) A masterpiece of expression, easy to understand and achievable by almost anyone, it says so much and is so effortlessly powerful it seems a truly amazing feat. She fell in love with it almost instantly.

She understands it's something special and a little forbidden, maybe something you can only say with a mask on. She understands it can be frightening and that some people might not like it. She understands maybe it's something she's not supposed to have.

She understands that; she just can't stop wishing for a hug. She doesn't want to. She doesn't think there is a gesture more eloquent.

Sometimes she wonders if a dislocated shoulder is just _his_ way of saying _'I see you'._ Sometimes she wonders if she doesn't understand as much as she thinks she does, actually.

.

For as long as she can remember, her life has been divided into two separate sections: the games, and everything else.

It's not that she doesn't like the games. It is the only part of her life she gets to share with anyone else, and it's the only part _he_ cares about, and she is quite good at it, too.

It's not that the pain is so terrible that it makes her wish she didn't have _him_ at all. She thinks most things wouldn't be terrible enough to make her wish that.

And maybe it's not even that sometimes she is just so tired, and forgets the purposes of everything, and things that should be taken for granted somehow don't make sense anymore (like looking at your fingers for too long, until they stop being familiar and it's hard to reconcile them with the generalized idea of fingers).

It's really not that – or at least, not mostly. Mostly, she just wants these two parts of her life to overlap, even if for just a little bit.

She sees _him_ almost every day, and usually around the same time; somewhere between breakfast and getting out of breath. Sometimes he'd land a hit but he more often doesn't, because she has good hearing and good reflexes and because he's so very predictable.

She sees him almost every day, and usually for the same amount of time; more heartbeats than is convenient to count, not enough that lunch can be forgotten. They spar and they dance and they bruise just a little, and sometimes he smiles but she can be happy even when he doesn't, because something in him always promises that he'll be back.

She sees him almost every day, and she waits for it, and she's usually not disappointed, because he usually comes and he usually stays; but always for the same reason.

She doesn't like to think too much about _why_ she wants to see him outside the well-defined boundaries of the games. If she thinks about it too much, it starts to seem so silly. What does it matter if he only smiles at her when she manages to hit him? What difference does it make if her punches make him proud but not her drawings?

It doesn't. Of course it doesn't, if only she takes a minute to really think about it. A nod that says _'adequate' _is still the same no matter what it's directed at. A clap on the shoulder always says _'good job'_ no matter what prompted it.

It makes no difference and it _is_ silly, and she knows that and she understands it and she still can't help wishing _he_ wouldn't push her away every time she tries to give him a hug; that the scraps of her that aren't glued together with sweat and muscle didn't feel so perfectly _lonely_.

But she has no idea how to explain to anyone that she sometimes sees smiling things on her ceiling and snarling things under her bed.

.

She thinks of the things outside of her home sometimes. She imagines big, colorful rooms with many different people wearing different masks and taking them off only for those they trust and those they want to understand. She imagines conversations carried out in private and countless intricacies she hasn't learned yet playing across unfamiliar features. She imagines sparring partners so in-tune that every punch fits perfectly and they never bruise. And she imagines broths and shakes and gruels made by better cooks, maybe tasting like something you'd want to eat.

She knows _he_ sometimes does other things, elsewhere. Things she doesn't know about and can't picture and wouldn't understand. He comes back with it etched in his knuckles (tight, white), in his forehead (bunched, lined). She only knows he was gone because of the smell of sweat or a half-dried leaf stuck to the bottom of his boot. There's usually blood, too, but that's not the point; blood he always has with him and sharp objects are never hard to come by, but he usually showers twice a day and even though she's seen them in pictures, there are no leaves anywhere at home.

Today there's the rigidness of dried salt water in his hair and the sting of it in the air around him. She's looking at her fingers and thinking about numbers (she knows numbers, from breathing and from other rules) when he throws the first kick. She's looking at her fingers, and not at him, and of course it was stupid and of course she was just _slow_, he doesn't have to scream it so loud (but then sometimes she suspects he doesn't have as much control over his scowls as he thinks.)

She kicks him in the gut and he rolls with it, but she can tell it still hurts, even without him saying so (he does.) A fist upwards is caught in his hand and it's the perfect excuse for a knee in the crotch. It's effective in theory and sometimes it works, but right now he's wearing plastic and padding and it doesn't.

Flipping her over his shoulder is effective in making her disoriented and limiting the functionality of her wrist, but it also gives her the opportunity to break his hold and slip out of his reach. He knows she has better mobility and giving her space was a mistake (or maybe he has a point to make, but she doesn't have time to gauge his current level of smugness.) Now that she has room to think and read and listen, it becomes old and familiar and repetitive.

Sometimes she suspects they let her win, he and all the others in masks. They speak so fluently – they've obviously had a lot of practice – but they don't seem to be able to read very well, and are almost incapable of keeping secrets. They always tell her exactly what they're about to do, and when they feint, and where they hurt, and even what they think she's doing. They almost never lie. And in the end, they always, always lose.

He widens his legs and lowers his stance for better balance, his hands steady in front of his chest, ready to block. He's not going to make the first move, which he knows she would prefer. He has very good defense.

She goes for the lower stomach and nudges his foot when he deflects her punch. In the moment it takes him to adjust his feet she slides behind him and throws a kick which forces him to duck. He swings at her and all she has to do is take a small step, fix her angle and lunge, and she's got three fingers pushing into his throat before he can even stumble.

They're panting, and this close up she can see the darkness beneath his eyes and the stiffness in his jaw. She removes her hand and he slaps her across the cheek – he hadn't declared defeat yet. She forgot. Having it written across his eyebrows isn't enough; the hands have to come up so that even the illiterate can understand. She nods, another unsubtle gesture of importance, and his features relax somewhat (_'Good enough for now.'_)

They sit down and slowly drip rivulets of sweat next to each other. He exhales noisily out of his nose and rests the back of his head against the wall so that his neck is a bumpy arch, and she can see when he swallows. There's heat and exhaustion rolling off of him, and his hair is limp again from the moisture.

He stinks and she can tell he's sticky, and she doesn't particularly want to touch him. So she gathers her knees to her chest and mimics his posture, leaning her head back. She's not even sure what exactly she's saying, but communication is never an exact science.

He glances at her and frowns (in a way that says something like _'I'm not even sure what exactly you're saying,'_) and pulls her wrist towards him. He squints and massages it before letting it go with a dismissive flick that says it isn't broken, though that much she could already tell. He closes his eyes, letting the sweat trickle over his eyelid (even though it must tickle), and sings of expectations and impatience and muffled rage.

She could hug him right now. He's tired and his eyes are closed, and she is right next to him and quick. In less than a second she could have her arms around him and apply some pressure before he pushes her off, and just like that, it will be the first time she's touched him in a way that doesn't hurt. She could lean against his side; she could take his hand; she could rest her forehead on his shoulder. She could, and then he won't be able to ignore what she can't quite articulate with just her eyes. He won't be able to pretend anymore. He will be forced to admit it: he is her father, and she loves him.

But of course she doesn't, and only partially because he really looks quite sticky and disgusting.

Eventually he dozes off and she leaves to shower. She knows he'll be irritable when he wakes up, because if there's one thing every muscle and joint and bone in his body never stops muttering, it's: _'Show no weakness.' _

And the bathroom mirror reminds her again of what she's not even sure she regrets anymore: she's really not that much like him at all.


End file.
